


The Martin-Hale Report

by rvst



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:29:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1234981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cora has a problem with Christmas. Lydia only feels at home during Christmas. Derek would prefer they keep their hands off each other in his house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Martin-Hale Report

The Beacon Hills Sheriff's Office saw more work than the average small town police force, but nearly the entire station showed up to watch the Sheriff pace in front of two young women. His face slowly turned red as he searched for the right words. These were two of the women he considered part of his son's pack, so he felt slightly wrong bringing the full hammer of the law down upon them. Despite the five car pileup they caused out the front of the newly bought Hale house. And the fallen power lines.

Also he could have sworn Cora was growling under her breath, but Scott assured him on a regular basis that that wasn't something werewolves actually did. (Three of his nineteen deputies noticed fairly early in their incarceration that it was in fact Lydia that was growling.)

But he was the Sheriff and someone had to get the full story from the two seething young women, the fact that the Christmas decorations were still up and most of the staff was anxiously awaiting the New Years Roster Lottery faded away into irrelevance.

Lydia and Cora sat angled away from each other, the former sitting primly with her hands clasped to the point of pain in her lap while the latter curled herself up almost into a ball. He sat down at his desk and sighed.

"Who wants to start?" The clock ticked, and tocked, and ticked again. "No?"

Lydia inhaled sharply through her nose, her eyes fixated upon the small fake tree on one of the many filing cabinets. Cora fidgeted with her hair, frowning at the slightly scorched tips on the left side.

"She hates Christmas!" Lydia snapped suddenly. Cora jumped so suddenly that her right foot hooked on the leg of her chair. It shot across the room and the werewolf found herself on the hard floor, looking more sheepish than a grown woman should be able to do. "How was I supposed to know she'd resort to arson?"

"I'm fine, dear. Thanks for asking," Cora grumbled, struggling to her feet and moving to stand behind her long-term girlfriend. "I did not start the stupid fire, and I most certainly did not cause a five car smash out the damn front of my only family's house!"

Lydia's mouth opened to argue further, but the Sheriff cut her off, "I don't care who hates what, just how the hell you managed to set only the front porch on fire. One of you has to tell me so you can both get back to not talking about your differences!"

"Since Hale here refuses to stay at my house-"

"Your mother threw me out by my hair when you introduced us!" Cora yelled. Lydia ignored her but unconsciously leaned back only the hands gripping the back of her uncomfortable chair.

The Sheriff waved one of the on looking deputies inside his office. "Could you please take Ms Hale to interview room three?"

"Really?" Cora knew damn well what that room was lined with, not even Scott could hear through its walls and door.

"I need independent statements."

The three women stared at him.

"Fine, I need to get this over and done with. It's three in the morning and I would very much like to be at home in my bed instead of dealing with a pre-marital dispute over Christmas of all things," he explained all without pausing for longer than a breath. He felt a headache coming on and Cora looking like she was going to fight his decision wasn't helping even a little bit.

"Just go, he's not going to water board me while you're gone. Scott's dad maybe, but the Sheriff's not like that," Lydia whispered so softly that while the Sheriff mostly heard her, the deputy missed it completely. The werewolf relaxed almost immediately, the tension fading from her arms while her fists unclenched. Lydia smiled before continuing her thought, "you think I can't scream loud enough for you?"

Cora's nose crinkled and her face went red. The deputy was caught completely off guard when the young woman nearly knocked her over in her haste to escape the room. The door slammed behind them.

"Was that necessary?"

Lydia grinned across the desk, "no, but it got her to cooperate and isn't the nose thing cute?"

"Cute?"

"I wouldn’t be about to propose if she wasn’t, now would I?"

Cora was lying on the interview room table when the deputy walked into the room. She was already thrown off balance and was moderately worried for her job if she messed up interviewing her first suspect in an arson case. She drew in a shaking breath, choosing her words carefully.

Her suspect sat up suddenly. "So, we're falling in the door at like two in the morning because Lydia just had to stop at some silly expensive shoe place that she only shops at because the people there know every bit of the industry backwards," Cora began, smiling to herself at the memory.

 

* * *

 

Cora's keys were somewhere on the lawn, dropped while juggling two shoe boxes and her own duffle bag of muted clothing. This was a problem as her idiot of a brother insisted that only family have keys to the new Hale household, the same idiot brother who was asleep in his nice warm bed.

Beacon Hills got cold post-midnight. Cora never really had the opportunity to notice this previously, always some monster to hunt down, a backseat to make out in, or a frigging house to sleep in. She resisted the urge to scream at her brother, instead choosing to watch Lydia rummage around in her purse.

She pulled out a small case not unlike her sleek silver glasses case and knelt carefully in front of the door. The shining metal tools tried their best to draw Cora's attention away from her girlfriend, but they were competing against Lydia Martin breaking and entering. Her grip started to slacken on the boxes she was holding. Lydia hummed, yet didn't turn around.

"Put them down properly and get over here," she said, her tone even and her body unmoving. Cora complied, setting the shoes down on one of the stairs as she bolted towards her girlfriend of three years.

The lock clicked open, Cora made a mental note to bully Derek into getting a better security system installed. No one who's friends with the new and improved Argent clan should be left so defenseless that a woman with little to no actual lock picking experience can get inside the house in under three minutes. They carried their bags inside and set them down quietly.

"Is Derek even home?" Lydia asked as she grabbed Cora's hands and wrapped them around herself from behind. Cora nuzzled into her girlfriend's hair, inhaling deeply at the scent of cherries. "Oh well, even if he is."

She spun around so fast that Cora was pretty sure whiplash was a distinct possibility. But that though only lingered for a moment as Lydia's lips were on hers and her arms were wrapped tightly around her neck.

They fit against each other easily, a well-practiced placing together of jigsaw pieces. Cora pressed forward, bringing a hand up to grasp tightly at Lydia's neck and pushing her girlfriend backwards until she was trapped between a wall and a werewolf. Lydia responded by hooking her leg possessively around Cora and groaning when nails scraped along the back of her neck.

"Unfair," she whispered when their lips parted for breath. Cora ignored her in favor of devouring  Lydia's neck. "So unfair."

"Breakfast is a six, I suggest you stop molesting each other and get some sleep!" Derek yelled from somewhere upstairs.

"Asshole!" Cora yelled back, detangling herself from Lydia as she did so. "I'll get the bags, you get those ridiculous shoes."

"Do you want to sleep on the couch?" Lydia picked up the shoe boxes, making sure to sway her hips exaggeratedly when she walked past the werewolf. She stopped an turned when she had one foot on the bottom step. "Though I do suppose it's cold."

Cora grinned.

"No sex in the house, I will turn the hose on you two!"

"Damn it Derek why?"

 

* * *

 

"Is that really relevant to the story?" Sheriff Stilinski asked. Lydia was sitting with her legs crossed demurely and nonchalantly examining her nails while she spoke. "I don't need to know about your intimate relationship with Cora Hale."

"Sure you do. And it's relevant because Derek's a dick, and six in the morning is far too early for either of us to be up."

 

* * *

 

Derek's heavy pounding on the door was so loud that Lydia's first thought was that there was a wrecking ball attempting to knock the door down.

"Breakfast in twenty! Try very hard to be dressed!"

"Make him go away," Lydia demanded, poking at Cora's side with her elbow. Cora grumbled but dragged herself out of bed anyway. "Thank you, sweetie."

"Stop calling me that," Cora snapped. She combed her hair with her fingers while she walked towards the door, flinging it open so quickly that the still banging Derek nearly caught her in the face with his fist. Cora glared harshly at her older brother. "Go away or I will have Lydia call you 'sweetie' for the duration of our stay here."

Derek made a completely mature face at her, yet turned and all but ran away all the same.

"We'll be down in fifteen!" Cora called after his retreating form. She turned to face her girlfriend, taking a moment to admire the elegance of a sleep-deprived Lydia. Her hair stuck up at interesting angles and her eyes were clenched tightly shut to fight off the invasive light of the morning. "Beautiful as always, dear."

"How come you're allowed to call me that but 'sweetie' is a demon word?"

Cora shifted her weight from one foot to the other and suddenly got extremely interested in finding herself something to wear for the day. "No reason."

 

* * *

 

The deputy stared at Cora with one eyebrow raised. Cora felt that a human expression should not be able to convey 'dirty, rotten liar' with such precision. "Really, 'no reason'?"

Cora fidgeted a little, squirming off the table and into the unoccupied chair. "It’s what I picture her calling our kids, okay?"

The deputy nearly reached over the table to pinch her cheeks, but professionalism won out.

"Continue, Ms Hale."

 

* * *

 

"After we eat, are we going out to get a tree? 'Cause you've left it really late, Hale," Lydia said when Derek served the single most delicious pancakes she'd ever experienced. The last Hale's standing stared at her with mild disbelief, although Derek's eyes flicked from Lydia to Cora so fast he thought he just might injure himself.

"How have you-"

"Look we haven't really spent a lot of time actually living together, it hasn’t come up yet," Cora cut him off, snatching nearly half the pancakes for herself along with an unhealthy amount of syrup. "We, kind of, don't really do Christmas."

Derek bit back a laugh at her hesitant admission, stealing several pancakes from her plate while she was wincing in anticipation.

"You don't-" Lydia started before stopping to compose herself. Screaming at her girlfriend around her future brother-in-law didn’t seem like the right course of action. "Why don't you, how don’t you?"

"I was running for my life."

"And I was, how did Stiles put it, 'perfecting my brood-face', since she left."

"Then there was Peter and all the drama Scott seems to attract."

"Your magic lady bits convinced Cora to kill Peter that one Christmas."

Lydia stood up, placing her hands flat on the table. "Firstly, thank you for noticing that my 'lady bits' are indeed magical."

Cora nodded in agreement.

"Secondly, she killed Peter on her own and I certainly did not ask her to do it at Christmas."

The Hale siblings went to argue. "No, that's how it happened, silly werewolves. Third, we are celebrating Christmas."

"No, we aren't," Cora replied forcefully, standing to better glare at her girlfriend. "We haven't done it once since the fire and we aren't starting now."

"Maybe we-"

"Derek!"

He held his hands up in surrender. "I'm just saying that maybe we could use a little cheer to lighten the place up a bit."

"Get some freaking sunflowers then!"

 "I already got you a present, though," Lydia said softly, sitting back down with her face downturned.

Cora nearly snapped at her, reigning in the urge by the skin of her teeth. "We'll exchange gifts, and that's it."

She grabbed her plate and stomped her way up the stairs.

"Are you sure about that?" Derek asked, waving his hand in the direction of his sister. "Because I have to like her, you're here by choice."

"It's fine. As she said, it's only because we've ever really talked about Christmas before. It doesn’t come up much in casual conversation," explained Lydia. Derek politely didn’t notice that she was near tears.

"We could get a fake miniature novelty tree? Big enough to fit the box Allison dropped off last night, but not too Christmas-y."

Lydia smiled at his attempt to make her feel better. "That would be great, I'll go get that now, if I can find Cora's keys."

She left the table without so much as putting food on her plate. Derek ate alone with a conflicted sense of happiness.

 

* * *

 

"So you were fighting?"

"Christmas was the only time of the year that my family was actually a family, it means a lot to me," Lydia argued. "Yes, I was more than willing to fight her over it. It's a precious time to me and God knows the Hale family needs all the togetherness it can get."

"Derek allows food in the bedrooms?"

Lydia laughed.

 

* * *

 

One miniature tree to signify where the presents were to be kept quickly escalated to fairy lights everywhere and a wheelbarrow full of tinsel. Cora was in hell.

The day before Christmas Eve she went into the garage to gather together Derek's camping supplies. She carried the tent into the backyard and had it completely set up before Lydia, who was showering when Cora left, noticed her girlfriend's absence.

"I'm going to sleep outside tonight while you guys do the movie marathon thing," Cora stated while brushing Lydia's hair.

Lydia's relaxed state evaporated in an instant. It was quickly replaced by rage. "You can't put aside your irrational hatred of Christmas to come inside and cuddle with me for one night?"

"To watch some stupidly happy family learn that they all need to stop being such selfish dicks for exactly one day out of the fucking year? No, not even you are worth sitting through that stupid bullshit!"

Cora stormed out of the room, her breathing heavy and heart pounding in terror. The hurt plainly displayed on Lydia's face was absolutely heartbreaking, but she needed to stop pushing the Christmas thing, Cora wasn’t going to suddenly love it. It wasn’t going to happen.

Lydia tried to breath. She did. But there was an elephant sitting on her chest. The pressure crushed her heart.

She reached into her purse, ignoring the hairbrush clattering to the hardwood floors, and pulled out her phone. Her fingers shook while trying to navigate to her most contacted list, a tear escaping when she passed over Cora's silly duck face contact picture. Idiot woman.

The phone rang six times before Allison answered it.

"Argent Security, Allison speaking."

"Some people look at their phones before they answer them," Lydia joked, smiling despite her pain. "Can I spend the night with you?"

 

* * *

 

"She just left."

Cora sat with her head in her hands.

"But how did the fire start?"

"Well," Cora started, trailing off with a guilty expression.

 

* * *

 

The day after Christmas. Derek collapsed in the living room, over-stuffed from dinner at the McCall house. Cora fervently doing her daily set of two hundred push-ups in the backyard where she continued to camp out. Lydia pulled up in her car.

Cora was on her feet and running out the front before Lydia turned off the engine.

"I've been thinking," Lydia started when she got out of the car, "you might have had a point."

"I did?" Cora tried to smile, her Lydia was back and might not leave her again. "What was that again, the bit where I behaved like a child, or when I threw a tantrum when you wanted to fool around in front of my brother?"

"No, when you said you don't want to be reminded that you only have Derek," Lydia explained, invading her girlfriend's personal space. "Although anyone who only has brooding wolf as family should be deeply pitied."

"Pity?"

"I mean that maybe we could go have lunch at that all day breakfast place, start a new Christmas." Lydia blinked up at Cora, her eyes shining with joy, yet hesitant all the same.

"New Christmas?"

"Yeah." Lydia encircled her waist. "A Martin-Hale Christmas. New family to make new memories with."

"I-"

"Derek can come too if he isn't dead and promises to keep his brooding to a minimum."

Cora kissed her. Then again, and again, and again. Continued to kiss her until Derek woke up and started screaming unholy murder about sex happening in his house.

 

* * *

 

"And that's what happened," said Cora, grinning madly. Pride was something the Hale family strongly needed to work on.

"That doesn't explain the fire?" The deputy had taken extensive notes, but there was nothing about a fire. Or cars. How they brought down some power lines was completely beyond the deputy.

"Oh, Allison showed up with my present from Lydia and Derek, well, Derek reacted badly."

 

* * *

 

"A werewolf on hunter fight?"

Lydia nodded, "Allison brought the flash arrows, Derek lost. No one else was hurt, and I'm more than happy to pay for any damage."

Sheriff Stilinski stuttered to himself for a few seconds.

"Sure, Lydia, why not? It's kind of Christmas."

"Thank you, sir. If you'll excuse me, I have a werewolf to propose to."

Lydia left the office, pulling the ring box from her pocket and smiling softly at her speechless girlfriend.


End file.
